New ‘Harlem Shake’ dance explodes across Web

Singaporeans get on the 'Harlem Shake' dance craze. (YouTube screengrab)

Move over Psy.

The newest dance sensation, the "Harlem Shake" is taking over the web and everyone – including Singaporeans – is doing it.

The quirky dance has no particular step or style – it just requires one to “get jiggy” with the beat. The more awkward looking the move, the merrier.

Most of the videos, usually shot in 30 second sequences, usually sees one person breaking out a funky move to a dance beat in different scenarios before the rest around him or her join in with their own style. The more outrageous the move, the better (props included).

The meme first started gaining traction last week and is attributed to a silly video from a video blogger named "Filthy Frank". Since then, the dance has exploded on the web, evoking memories of the way Psy’s “Gangnam Style” quickly went viral.

A YouTube blog last week entitled “The Harlem Shake has exploded” said over 12,000 “Harlem Shake” videos have been uploaded to the site since the start of the month. 4,000 new videos are being uploaded daily now.

A dance move popularized in the 80s, the Shake got a “refresh” in 2011 when New York DJ Baauer released an electronic dance track called Harlem Shake, which is the same backing track that people are grooving to in the viral videos.

The infectious dance style has now also invaded university campuses all over Singapore. Media companies have jumped on the bandwagon. Buzzfeed, College Humor and others have uploaded some pretty wacky moves.

Then comes a Harlem Shake Roulette a website that pulls together all the videos, Chatroulette-style to satiate the newly triggered desire to watch people quiver and tremble in a random repetitive actions.